302 UMBELLIFERAE (PARSLEY FAMILY) 
Quite as poisonous as the preceding plant and probably the 
cause of more fatalities. Roots two to four inches long, thick, 
fleshy, tuberous, bunched in a cluster (fasciculated) at the swollen 
base of the stem. These are especially dangerous, for their taste 
is pleasantly aromatic, somewhat like that of its harmless relative, 
Sweet Cicely, for which they are sometimes mistaken, generally 
with fatal results; or they may be mistaken for artichokes or 
parsnips in the early spring. 
At this season the roots are fre- 
quently forced out of the earth 
by washing or freezing, or cattle 
and sheep, biting at the young 
shoots, pull them easily from 
the wet soil. One of the fasci- 
eled roots will kill a cow, and a 
much smaller portion, when 
eaten by a person, is sufficient 
to bring a swift and distressful 
death, unless medical aid is im- 
mediately at hand. (Fig. 210.) 
Stems stout, smooth, hollow, 
two to six feet tall, streaked 
with brown and purple, the 
color more pronounced at the 
junction of stem and branches. 
Leaves pinnately twice or thrice 
Fie. 210.— Water Hemlock (Cicuta divided, the segments lance- 
woe), 264: shaped, thin, sharply and rather 
coarsely toothed, the veins terminating in the notches instead of at 
the points. Umbelsopenand spreading, without involucres, the ped- 
icels in the umbellets unequal in length, giving the clusters an 
uneven appearance; like all the Parsley Family, the flowers are 
very small, five-petaled with five stamens inserted on the disk 
that crowns the two-celled and two-seeded ovary. In this species 
the petals are white. Carpels about an eighth of an inch long, 
ovoid, smooth, each one striped on the convex side with five 
corky ribs and four brown oil-tubes and on the flat side with two 
wide corky stripes and two oil-tubes. 
